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Sojourner truth was born in 1787 in slavery in New York.Her real name was Isabelle Baumfree but in 1843 when she decided to commit herself to abolitionism and methodism, change it for Sojourner Truth.

as a child she was sold for $100 at an auction and later in fee life she would recall that: “[…]a slave auction is a terrible affair to its victims, and its incidents and consequences are graven on their hearts as with a pen of burning steel[…]”

early in her life she showed vehemently her desire for freedom and independence as she escaped from slavery with her baby daughter in 1826. In 1827 Ny was proclaimed a free state but nonetheless her boy Peter was sold to a farm in Alabama. She took this case to court and won becoming one of the first black women to win over a white man in a court.

Sojourner later lost her child who found a job on a ship but never made it back from his first trip.

Between the ’30s and the ’50s she spoke in front of large crowds about black people and women’s rights.

Famous is her speech “Ain’t I a woman” delivered in 1851 at a women’s convention in Ohio:”[…] if the first woman ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back and right side up again!and now they it asking to do it, the men better let them[…]”.

In the ’60s she met president Abraham Lincoln in more than one occasion and during the Civil War she helped to recruit black soldiers for the Union Army.

Also after the Emancipation Proclamation (1865) Sojourner Truth continued to fight for universal suffrage, segregation by occupying cars only for whites, but she also fought against the capital punishment and a reform of the prisons.

She died in 1883 becoming a symbol of freedom freedom of thought and perseverance.